“WASHINGTON â€” U.S. employers added 144,000 workers to their payrolls in August and hiring totals for the two prior months were revised up as the job market brightened, the Labor Department reported on Friday.

The unemployment rate dipped to 5.4 percent last month from 5.5 percent in July. But the drop in the jobless rate in August came as people left the work force for any number of reasons, the Labor Department said. Economists were predicting the jobless rate to hold steady in August.”

That’s the biggest gain since May, and the 12th month of steady jobs growth.